Veritasium - 2021-09-30
Your genetic code is probably already in a database, without you ever giving a sample or permission. This video is sponsored by Brilliant. The first 200 people to sign up via https://brilliant.org/veritasium get 20% off a yearly subscription. ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ A huge thanks to Paul Holes, Billy Jensen, Brett Williams, Dr Connie Bormans and Dr Doc Edge for being part of this video. Thanks to Verogen and Family Tree DNA for giving me access to film. Thanks to Sonya Pemberton, Joe Hanson, Raquel Nuno, CGP Grey, and numerous Patreon supporters for helpful feedback on an earlier version of this video. ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ References: Phillips, C. (2018). The Golden State Killer investigation and the nascent field of forensic genealogy. Forensic Science International: Genetics, 36, 186-188. -- https://ve42.co/Phillips2018 Guerrini, C. J., Robinson, J. O., Petersen, D., & McGuire, A. L. (2018). Should police have access to genetic genealogy databases? Capturing the Golden State Killer and other criminals using a controversial new forensic technique. PLoS biology, 16(10), e2006906. -- https://ve42.co/Guerrini Ram, N., Guerrini, C. J., & McGuire, A. L. (2018). Genealogy databases and the future of criminal investigation. Science, 360(6393), 1078-1079. -- https://ve42.co/Ram2019 ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ Special thanks to Patreon supporters: Andrew, Diffbot, Micah Mangione, MJP, Gnare, Nick DiCandilo, Dave Kircher, Edward Larsen, Burt Humburg, Blake Byers, Dumky, Evgeny Skvortsov, Meekay, Bill Linder, Paul Peijzel, Mac Malkawi, Michael Schneider, Big Badaboom, Ludovic Robillard, Jim buckmaster, fanime96, Juan Benet, Ruslan Khroma, Robert Blum, Richard Sundvall, Lee Redden, Vincent, Marinus Kuivenhoven, Alfred Wallace, Clayton Greenwell, Michael Krugman, Cy 'kkm' K'Nelson, Sam Lutfi, Ron Neal ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ Executive Producer: Derek Muller Writer: Derek Muller Animators: Iván Tello, Another Angle 3D Visuals SFX: Shaun Clifford Camerapeople: Derek Muller, Raquel Nuno, Shirley Dutoit, Emily Zhang Editor: Derek Muller Producers: Derek Muller, Casey Rentz, Petr Lebedev, Emily Zhang Additional video supplied by Getty Images Music from Epidemic Sound https://epidemicsound.com ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀
I live in the netherlands. The Netherlands used to have a very good and detailed record of everyones information and bloodlines in the 20th century. Very well organized and all in one place.
When it became clear that the Netherlands would be occupied by nazi Germany somoene tried to burn down this archieve but sadly the fire didnt destroy that much.
The Nazis used this archieve to very affectivly identify everyone that was jewish in some way (including Anne Frank ofcourse), sometimes people that didnt even know jewish was in their blood line.
This is what frankly irritates me about this video. The guy says its a mother vs somoene whos just umcomfortable. Its not, its a mother finding her child vs organized genocide. Morally it doenst matter that much what its used for now, what matters is how incredibly easy it would be for an evil government to use it for true horror. You cannot account for the government of the future
Thank you for saying this. This doesn't even have to go to such extremes to be worrying, just look at the US today, there's already rampant corruption across law enforcement, do we (even if we're not from the US) really trust them with this data? Just by knowing the skin color of the suspect they already change their strategy to shoot first ask questions later, can you imagine what they'd do with such information?
It's always a "mother that lost a child" and never "a corrupt cop who murders an innocent person".
Oh yeah almost forgot, ACAB.
@Rimpelmans I have no mobile phone but there is increasing pressure to use one. I cannot use the laundry machines at my apartment complex because they require a smartphone. I could not order food at any of the restaurants at the airport without a phone. I don't have a car, and cannot use Uber or Lyft without a phone. If I were to buy a car, there are many places I wouldn't be able to park without a phone.
That's making the assumption we're likely to in the future use such a database in such a despicable and completely morally inambiguous way. The worst realistic scenario they could come up with in the video was making health insurance unavailable to you because you were born with a set of DNA you didn't choose.
I just think equating family ancestry data to empowering genocide is a bit too far of a jump.
I also still believe a large segment of "privacy" proponents ultimately want to use that privacy to hide illicit actions.
@JeManGerrit I'm glad that now we can just bypass you and your preferences and upload our DNA to a searchable database. Until now you lunatics were ruling us. Now we can just ignore you and catch criminals anyway. I can't wait till this technology comes to my country.
@G. C. jeez, im sorry for ruling over you for all this time
There's a huge issue that no one seems to bring up. Investigative misuse of DNA has been well documented. It's not the rights of privacy being weighed against the mother of a daughter that has been brutally killed unless you have unlimited faith in police and the judicial system. You obviously haven't been paying attention if you have that (or even close) level of faith
@TenBroeck in the average case you're right but when you deviate from there it becomes scary. Just as DNA is left from a murderers body, you're constantly leaving it too. Imagine that you visited a friend one day and later that day they are murdered by someone who's trained to not leave DNA evidence
@Justin Mcallister and? They're not going to incriminate you solely based on that! Also, it's pretty much impossible not to leave DNA behind at the best of times, imagine while committing a damn murder!
You haven't seen enough wrongly accused and convicted cases. The DA could give a rat's ass if your innocent, what they want is a conviction. Our system is flawed. Catching the real criminal and more importantly keeping innocent people out of jail should be the priority not having a high conviction rate on your record. Even I was wrongfully convicted of a dui I didnt do. And the DA played dirty In court. It made me hate the system.
@AJV add one layer of complexity. Say it was a friend that you recently had an argument with.
On the DNA thing. You're just hopelessly wrong. There's whole scientific fields that routinely complete processes that are ruined by MUCH less than testable DNA samples, like a bacteria spore or a microscopic cotton fiber (like tissue engineering or silicon etching)
You don't have the benefit of controlled airflow and much more can go wrong but to say it nearly impossible is just 100 percent wrong
@Poppa Choppa imo a public dna database is what is needed for the point where crimes aren't really doable without consequences.
Utterly brilliant video. You could do a feature length sequel on the potential future uses and misuses of a comprehensive DNA database. If it became open, then every kind of business would have a means of targeting you. Not just health insurance but also bank loans, dating websites, job-finding websites, etc. could have their results skewed due to assumptions they make about you.
I think about what it could do for targeted advertising, promotions, preventative criminal profiling, public shaming (due to a close relation to a criminal), etc. The potential for misuse is profound.
All these databases will eventually leak, though. It always happens
Agreed. I remember when hiring managers started outright asking for your social media profile as a contingency for an interview. Now imagine a future when they start asking for your ancestry profile. It's coming.
Except that this is all shortsighted. 😔
@Mason Wagner Gattaca is exactly what i've been thinking about reading these comments yeah. Very real illustration of DNA prejudice
@Declan Graham Imagine now, if someone wants privacy in the future, they would need to redesign their children, to obfuscate their offsprings DNA... After all, it's just data.
I just can't get over how the cold case investigator has such an AMAZING radio voice.
"My biggest concern is health insurance. If you have someone's DNA profile, and that gets into the wrong hands, or laws enacted, resulting in health insurance companies having access to knowing that this person has a proclivity to Parkinson's, then rates could skyrocket. This is a massive privacy issue."
there needs to be a full video about this and other downsides
"This is a massive privacy issue."
there needs to be a full video about this and other downsides"
They completely left out how this information could be used by a totalitarian government, or a government that becomes totalitarian. This is the essence of what privacy means in the Constitution. To protect you from the Government!
Christ, that's not how this works.
@Joonas Varjoluoto Because, insurance tend to be more important for this kind of person and discrimination makes insurance not affordable for the individual that needed it the most as it is more profitable for the company that way.
23AndMe. 😂😂😂
@drmadjdsadjadi 23AndMe 😂😂😂.
I got caught bc of DNA for a middle of the night liquor store burglary. I was aware I left my blood. 4 years later my DNA was collected for codis and It was just a waiting game for me. Took about 2 months for detectives to show up at my house. My only hope was that a burglary wasnt a serious enough crime to collect such evidence but it was. The cops who investigated it did a good job and I got my act together
You’re channel contains divisive trash tho. I bet this serial killer would have agreed to your sentiments on women.
@eel ikr he hasn’t changed at all 😭😭
Good for you, you’re still weird :
That doesnt mean they didnt sell the weed.
what's "codis"?
Taking into account how increasingly subservient / captured our governments have become by corporations over these past 40 years, the chances of that priceless DNA data NOT being legally sold to insurance corporations at some point in the next 20 years are negligible. I'll be astounded if it does not happen.
There would have to be a law against it
Insurance companies are businesses, not charities. If someone is genetically predisposed to have a higher (or lower) risk of heart disease, cancer, etc. why shouldn't insurance corporations factor that in when deciding on insurance coverage?
@djm Why shouldn't corporations murder people for money? I don't know maybe because it's morally wrong?
@djm because it’s gonna prevent a large number of people from affording insurance at all. Some people just have bad luck and we need to account for that. We humans understand that we could have been unlucky and had genetic conditions as well so we empathize. I presume some nations barely need insurance because of how good their welfare/healthcare system is. This problem might even be resolved over time with genetic engineering and popularization of CRISPR.
Because HIPPA. Insurance companies are not allowed to have your DNA.
Protected Health Information. The Privacy Rule protects all "individually identifiable health information" held or transmitted by a covered entity or its business associate, in any form or media, whether electronic, paper, or oral. The Privacy Rule calls this information "protected health information (PHI)."12
“Individually identifiable health information” is information, including demographic data, that relates to:
the individual’s past, present or future physical or mental health or condition, etc.
The 73% opt-in rate should be considered in context. When selecting your privacy setting, opting in is the first selection, the only one that’s green, and the explanatory text ends with “The operators of GEDmatch encourage everybody to select this option.”
Everyone in the comments seems worried about the state having this data. I'm more worried about the eventuality of these companies changing their policies to allow them to sell the information they have to pharmaceutical, insurance, and privatized Healthcare companies. Imagine going to a hospital and being grouped into a price bracket due to a possible genetic disposition. Or going to a pharmacy and your health insurance has your medication cost in a higher price tier. This is a very slippery slope that can lead to a very dystopian future and unfortunately, money talks. Even if laws are passed to prevent it now, there is no telling what might happen with enough lobbying. Even if a law is passed which prevents health and life insurance companies from purchasing data from these genetic companies, they might end up acquiring the company all together. But my little comment here on YouTube isn't going to change anything. As for myself, I will wait until proper laws are passed in order to protect us before I ever submit my DNA to a database.
@Chipwhitley274 Let's be real here, they won't. They'd get a few million, or maybe 1/2 billion usd fine, and move along. It'd be a slap on the wrist compared to the profits they'd make
@Anym,
Let's be real here... you cannot demonstrate that to be the case.
Health & drug companies are businesses, not charities. If someone has "good" DNA, why shouldn't they be able to receive a discount on health & drug expenses? Men are automatically charged higher rates for life & car insurance, why shouldn't people with "bad" DNA be charged higher rates for health insurance?
@Ember Hermin Even government run health insurance is a business. A person's health is a balance between costs & benefits. Older, poorer and less healthy people cost more: not just in healthcare, but also pensions and welfare. The "benefits" that one provides are current & future income taxes: younger, richer, and healthier people have higher current & future income taxes. Some people are (pardon the expression) worth more dead than alive, and countries such as Canada are encouraging MAID as a way to save on healthcare, pension, and welfare costs.
"Imagine going to a hospital and being grouped into a price bracket due to a possible genetic disposition." My god man! Imagine going into a hospital and getting exactly the help you need because the doctors understand exactly what your issues and potential issues are since they're not relying on random, patchy, self-reported symptoms in order to diagnose your ailments. The tin-foil hats in the comment section here are ridiculous.
The fact that it took two years (noticed the calendar) for you to collect the whole data shows the level of dedication and effort put into making a video informative. I like how you grew from making scientific explanation videos to making videos about how science actually helps the world.
Weird, some things happened in 2020.
@LongArmsGiraffe09 He's giving you the pros and cons to not make the video biased. Btw, I don't think the FBI knocks on your door for a crime as petty as that
@Lynx Lynxov Bro you need some help😂
Helps...or hurts. :/
@A CHAVE DO TAMANHO People are still free to rape or murder... Just they're going to go to court then prison afterward.
I always find it disgusting when people and news outlets give nicknames to criminals. It's like you are trying to make them feel powerful and giving them infamy.
Hurricanes, though?
The risks outweigh the possible benefits. Even if we have laws protecting it from being abused by health insurance, or even worse, the state (imagine the fun the nazis would have had with it), nothing guarantees that someday someone will not change those laws.
The excuse of "doing it for security" can easily be turned into it creating insecurity on a massive scale.
@capusvacans The Republican Party is not "autocratic". Biden has signed more executive orders than Trump. Trump never called Democrats or Biden supporters "threats to America".
@djm .... you really don't know what autocratic means, "remember trump saying "I alone can fix it", start from there and connect the dots, it's not hard, the dots are pretty much planet sized.
Apart from that trump never called democrats a threat to the nation?, Really, try counting how often he said "the radical left democrats are going to destroy he country" or "if we lose the country will be destroyed" and variations to this. You could probably make a 24 h long voicetrack with all the times he called democrats a theat to the nation.
I guess that just like trump, ypu have the best memory and a "great abrain".
@djm If an old man falls in front of you, are you going to help him get up or leave him there while blaming him that he's old?
If someone gets sick, are you just going to leave them to die?
There is are things called solidarity and empathy, traits which are also a part of our genetics. You are basicaly saying that we shouldn't have those because some ppl want to make money of the suffering of others.
Does the child that is born with a disease deserve a good life? Do women, who give birth to all of us deserve to live in poverty for it?
Sure the health industry is a business, the question is, should it be? I mean you eat food, you need food, why don't we let the market play freely in that and have farmers raise the price based on the demand for their product? Get ready to pay 10k for a potato.
Thing is, nobody is saying health care companies shouldn't make a profit, the question is, should they be able to hold ppls lives at ransom?
@djm Correct. Health insurance companies use whatever information they have available to make informed decisions about risks. That's all.
@capusvacans What does Trump have to do with djm's comment?! And what does he have to do with this discussion? Trump, like every other politician, is a showman. They say things that they think will improve their ratings. It's unlikely they believe much of what they say. The next time you see a politician giving a speech, just think of it as a piece of performance art. That's all it really is in a democracy.
Privacy aside, this is crazy. Props to the investigators for being so committed in finding justice. They probably knew more about the ancestry and history of the killer than himself.
The only thing I'm concerned about is if the database starts getting used in the wrong hand. Like, if a high officer or political figure gets into accusations, they could grab a random dudes dna and say that thats the dna evidence that was at the crime scene.
They can already plant other kinds of evidence. Planting random evidence (whether that's DNA or anything else) is less likely to succeed today when we have better surveillance of people than ever before.
Wow, that DuckDuckGo ending really hits a certain ironic spot.
@Dan Sweda google has access to your texts for functions like "autofill from messages". you likely agreed to it at some point
@Dan Sweda Lol, right?! Funny how the data from that puppy picture only contains the letters A, C, G, and T...
@Nick M hmm, I usually deny access to everything, other than pictures to send via text, I figured everything you do on your phone is shared by all apps. media and internet, which I think is wrong, especially when I call my mother and mention I need to go to the store to buy some cat food, then I hang up, go on YouTube to watch the latest UFO sightings and the first ad to pop up is for a certain brand of cat food, or how I'm able to repeat something out loud when I'm home alone then whatever I said comes up as a suggestion for a video to watch on YouTube. Etc
Not at all, she is just aware how easy it is to track people.
Just like cops are much more aware of criminals than normal people, even though they almost always have guns in them
fr they're all hypocrite scum.
This is great to catch killers, so they said around 70 cases. So that tiny percentage compared to the negative possibility of this being used for health care which is 300+ million is pretty scary. It's not comparable, and when u ha e good intentions you can inadvertently cause something much worse.
"No good deed goes unpunished!"
One of the most fascinating and intriguing stories I've had the pleasure to listen to in a long time, thanks for taking the time to of researching and presenting this story derek, appreciate the work you do so much :)
Derek, great video as always. Have you heard of the Book "The Age of Surveillance Capitalism" by Shoshana Zuboff"? It's really on point with the doors you opened in this video, especially regarding our personal information becoming a commodity. Highly recommended and curious what you think about it in the context of Science, the technology involved, and the many assumptions made about what is essentially something unprecedented.
The criminal himself, in this case, was a law enforcement officer. Thus, it is hard for us to trust them with our information...
My biggest problem with this is the enormous amount of DNA tracking and testing to find a criminal is OK, but death row inmates who get exonerated have to petition the court for years for a DNA test on existing samples to prove their innocence.
@Chuck Williams Also the fact that imprisoning and death row is extremely resource-consuming
It’s almost like the fed isn’t very interested in keeping the innocent free🧐
Corruption...
@Jenna Gets Creative yeah canadians treat pedophiles friendly and they get a friendly sentence
M8 your democracy analogy doesn't even make sense on the simplest lvl let alone for something this complex.
And why is big data the big thing these days? Because there is lots of money in it. Do you think facebook, google and the tons of trackers that everyone comes into contact with do it for your benefit? No, they do it to get data to sell or to be able to tailor their adds to you. Not to offer you things you need, you would look those up for yourself, but to offer you things they want you to need.
And big data in the cyber world is not the same as a DNA bank. But undoubtably it would be abused in the same way.
Just think of one thing that could make life better that hasn't been exploited to the maximum already? Cell phones are pretty decent tools by themselves, but they are also used to track you, steal your data, get ppl hooked on various micro transaction games, brought gambling into the hands of everyone at anytime with very little limites etc.
Why would you think that a DNA database wouldn't be used for such purposes? You think politicians and corporations will suddenly act moraly when they are staring at a huge pile of money and power?
It is not that i don't see benefits in it, but the risks are just too great.
Here's a little anekdote. Here in belgium we now have to give our fingerprints when we get our ID cards (which are compulsory). It was also sold as it being the thing that would solve masses of crimes and make the world a much better place.
So then neutral research was done into the matter, and it turns out that this database would solve about 5 to 10 crimes each year. Most of them being theft. Meanwhile this data is stored somewhere, and we can only hope that it's safe, because if anyone will malicious intent gets a hold of this the potential problems are massive.
Identity theft, framing of ppl for crimes etc. become easy with that data. And that risk is now around simply to solve about 5 to 10 cases of theft.
With a DNA database it will be similar, granted some categories of crimes, especialy rape would be much easier to solve. Many other crimes that would be solved by this database would actualy be solvable with decent detective work, but unfortunately we send our cops on the streets to harrass ppl for minor things, and then don't have any left to do the real work.
Before turning to something that has the potential for absolutely horrible consequences we should probably try fixing stuff in a different way first, and yes, that requires effort.
But as long as nobody can pretty much guarantee that no corporations will ever get access, and that no new hitler type regimes would be able to abuse it, caution remains the wiser path imo.
And when it comes to life, you don't need to know what diseases you might get to change your lifestyle. Just live your life happy now at all times, with some contingencies for the future
Also, you realise that you don't need dna to know if someone is at risk of certain cancers and diseases, right? If alzheimers runs in the family, well guess what, you are at risk. If breastcancer runs in the familiy, well guess what, you are at riks.
So could you send a request asking how many killers, predators, etc have been caught because of your genetic profile? That would be interesting to know.
The average would be an infinitesimally small decimal. 70/tens or hundreds of millions of samples. There are so few cold cases with DNA compared to the number of people taking these tests.
Not sure how happy I would be finding out I was genetically related to a criminal
@Gamer 239 all humans are genetically related, we all have a common ancestor. You (and me and everyone else) are related to Hitler.
Well, technically all life on Earth is related. Whatever your diet, you are distantly related to your dinner. Slightly less distantly if it was a steak, if you're vegan a bit more distantly, but related nonetheless
@Gamer 239 a criminal and a rapist are not the same thing
@Gamer 239 I think it's statistically improbable that you're NOT related to at least one criminal. The question you should rather ask is: what's the worst crime that someone genetically close to me has committed?
I happened to watch a TV program about two weeks ago about this very person. It ended when he was finally caught and convicted, telling how the DNA-relative-connections was the breakthrough, but did not go into that much detail. Your video was the perfect final episode to this TV program, thanks very much! Great work (as usual), by the way! Keep up the good work.
"I have been working on this video for a couple of years". This really shows the amount of care and research that you put in your content. Bravo!
he says that with every video though ;)
Another good thing about it, is that we get more ways to get solid evidence, and get one step closer to decreasing the value or abolishing confessions, that are not uncommonly misused to trick or force people into wrongly incriminating themselves, and witnesses, that are not uncommonly misused to wrongly incriminate others - either out of malice or mistake.
I'm not worried about the DNA part, the bit I'm anxious about is the misuse of the police. It is SO easy to put someone's DNA somewhere. It's so easy to implicate someone.
Good thing then DNA evidence isn't the be all end all of crime convictions.
You sound guilty 🧐
police should be very transparent about what they are doing...
Hahaha, tell them!
@LivingBreathing whatchu do
Fantastic job on this video. Your style of conveying information should be modeled by more. This is an incredibly complicated societal issue. The reality is there are many situations where we don't have full control of our identity. For instance, the Unibomber was found because his brother recognized his writing style. Not apples to apples, but maybe fruit to fruit? Something he didn't want known, that was made known by a relative. Regardless, there is no closing this DNA door now. It is irrelevant that you may not want your DNA located or searched. The best we can hope for is a doctrine that allows for the responsible use of this information. I don't think anyone would argue that Joseph DeAngelo being locked in a box forever is a worthwhile use of this technology. But the certainty of it being used for immoral, unethical or even illegal purposes by companies with a bottom line to pad, or by a government increasingly disrespectful of the rights of it's citizens, is an unsettling prospect.
The ultimate debate it's down to is on who wields access to this level of genetic surveillance. Will the law remain as strictly for sexual assault and abduction, or will a government start using it for political dissidents...
This was well done and very enlightening. However, once you give up your privacy for any reason, it is gone for ever. That will spread like a virus and pretty soon the country we have known is gone.
Perhaps a better solution would be to not release these perps from their early jail encounters and prevent them from committing further crimes. After all, if we are willing to sacrificing 300 million lives how about only sacrificing one hundred thousand or so. No one will miss those.
I find it kinda odd that so many people are sceptical of sharing their DNA with law enforcement, but happy to share it with a commercial company..
nailed it lol
i dont think youre realising that most of us hesitant with one are not sharing it with the other
You must not be from the States.
Because when interacting with companies people have a false sense of control that they're not gonna be screwed over and that they're making a "free choice", but when they're interacting with the gov they think they're interacting with a huge bureaucracy they have no control over.
This is a pretty fundamental debate. The industry people are saying "it's just for solving murders and rapes, and who doesn't want that?" But that limitation is completely arbitrary. They could look for who attended a protest, or a union meeting, or a gathering of political opposition. It's just that, right now, these companies aren't being bribed or coerced into that kind of cooperation. So the things being balanced aren't privacy vs apprehending a murderer, they're apprehending a murderer vs "are you confident that this will never be used in ways you disagree with, even in 100 years?"
@jokul The main point I would like to make here is that with your DNA (or significant sections of your DNA from relatives) The state gains an important tool which it can use to track you more than if they had license plates and photos and CCTV alone. Essentially the DNA grants the state information in two ways:
1. With your DNA, they can find markers in your DNA related to health predispositions, ethinic ancestry, etc. If your DNA became available to a company, they could use this information to charge premiums for health insurance or discriminate based on genetic factors, e.g predispositions for disease, or a genetic marker saying you have a higher chance of commiting crimes. If a government wanted to do ethinic cleansing or genocide, they will find it easier do to so with DNA tracking.
2. Any biological traces that you leave anywhere can now be tracked by swabbing a sample at the site. This allows the state to find you much easier than if they had just fingerprint and photos and such.
I do not argue that the state already has various ways to track and identify people if they so wish. However, my point is that DNA tracking is a very large expansion of the capabilities for the state to track people and gives them information that they can use to discriminate and do genocide. I believe this expansion of power is a net negative for society, and outweighs the advantage that law enforcement gains from tracking criminals. The state is not all-benevolent, and it may some day want to do some or all of the things I described above, maybe to track political dissdents, maybe for something else.
Such tyrannical states have existed in the past, and many modern states are tyrannical too. The USA does not have the cleanest track record, and I do not want to bet the safety of democracy and the public on trusting the government not to misuse this capability.
@jokul All the stuff you mentioned can be hidden. However that is not the case with DNA. It's directly connected to your person.
"They could look for who attended a protest, or a union meeting, or a gathering of political opposition" They(whoever they are) can do that right now by opening their eyes!
@Monaleenian Someone would have to be actively following you in the present. The real danger is that anything you did in the past can be scrutinized as well.
@Bartz0rt There are loads of other things that you might unknowingly leave behind that would indicate that you were present. It could be an ID card, or a personal item, or even your smell. DNA being left behind is no different in principle.
I personally "love" how they dance around the issue of the inherent consent issue with DNA, suddenly it's "society" that has to consent, and funnily enough society means the FOR PROFIT organizations that provide this service and law enforcement who are notoriously corrupt. Wow, it's almost like both have a vested interest in having access to information that would benefit them in some way that is immoral.
How about this, since it's about "society", and this has to pass through the politicians first, let's force (because it IS forcing, there's no consent involved) all the politicians to submit their DNA and let's run it against sexual assault cases and act on it. See how quickly this gets shut down.
This is about more than feeling comfortable with a loss of privacy. It's about power of the state vs power of the individual. There are always going to be good things a state can do with more power, but that doesn't mean more power to the state is always good because whenever there's a power imbalance it's up to the people with power to decide how they use it. Someone else gave the example of how the Nazis used genealogy information and others have pointed out the times when police have planted false evidence. These might seem like an extreme or edge case scenarios but the undeniable truth is that this information can be used in any number of disturbing ways. That's why there are already laws protecting people's privacy and why illegally obtained evidence cannot be used to convict someone even when they are guilty of something terrible. Because the potential for abuse exists on all sides. There is a balance to be found and this is a big step towards dis-empowering the individual.
I'll just say this, I'd rather have 10 killers on the lose, than even one single innocent person imprisoned, especially for political reasons or otherwise. There are many moral reasons I feel this way. But there is one mathematical reason it must be this way, which is, its not a trade off. If an innocent person is imprisoned falsely, then bad guy is still out there anyways. You can make almost any crime fit any person if you just take enough liberties to do so. You can even make evidence fit almost anyone if you really want to. We don't need less privacy to make a safer world, we need better science, and better police.
People say what they'd do but it's actually a horrid thing to shoot someone breaking in. As a single dad of a 2 & 4yr old. A young guy broke in on me. Just out of prison, thinking I was dating his ex. I warned police after he'd actually threatened such on the phone! My boys were sleeping in my room that night. As a former bail agent, I'm a trained shooter and did all I could to prevent it. But he found that out the hard way!
The potential for abuse of this in the hands of the state is insane.
@Kevin Lindsay My disagreement with your stance on state DNA tracking aside, the word "equivocal" does not mean what you think it means
so is money, and any other exposing information/data that the government already has.
@gasun "here's a pointless quote i read on the internet once, i'll copy it here and then babble some nonsense so what i say appears intelligent and wise"
I don't know, companies already have all of our information. DNA evidence really isn't the most powerful tool to track criminals anymore. The best way to avoid this, just don't murder and rape people.
Well what doesnt
The Nazis tried to understand genetic information taken from my people. I am a gypsy, and till today, our numbers haven’t bounced back. Many scientific experiments were conducted on gypsies. Most things are so horrifying, I would prefer not to even discuss it. That being said, I would never voluntarily provide any genetic information to a source that the federal government, among others, has full access to. And please don’t dilute yourself into believing that they will not get into their systems.
Like a lot of people, my problem isn't with the concept, it's in who's executing it. And between the massive amounts of civil forfeiture, the horrific abuse of the arrested and imprisoned, and just the general lack of consiquences for law enforcement in most countries, this is not tech I feel comfortable opting into while the possibility of false positives or abuses of power is so high.
DNA submission has to be a requirement for all government employees. It would have prevented 49 from becoming victims in just this one case.
Okay, this is great, but my main concern is accuracy. I'm not by any means an expert but that "snips" matching feels very prone to false positives, I don't understand how DNA is translated into letters, and I'm sure it's definitely much more complicated than this which is out of the scope of this video (and won't be that interesting)... Is a nanogram accurate enough to convict someone? Is it really infallible? I've heard of cases where DNA convictions were wrong, I don't know statistics... But I would love to.
This technology is revolutionary, 100% with it, but it feels too good to be true and has several points of failure (and possibly questionable accuracy) that could ruin innocent lives.
When this company has it's inevitable data breach, it's going to be really interesting.
when people who don't know the difference between its and it's try to appear smart on the internet.
@SpaYco No it’s not lol. All it takes is some employee to feel like they won’t get caught and be offered a lot of money for them to do this. Breaches happen all the time and it’s not always some outside hacker or whatever
Please remove your tinfoil hats
@SpareSomeChange based.
Data breach? The only reason they exist is to collect data for the NSA and CIA databases! They already freely hand over your data to the most evil organizations on earth!
Personally, I feel a bit conflicted. Especially due to the fact that your DNS is NOT specific to you, as an individual. Comparing DNA to the Code, like that which makes up a Computer Program, it seems that the Genealogy Websites and Law Enforcement tend to treat the portions of the DNA, that are shared amongst many people in your family tree, as if it should be 100% Open Source, since those Lines of Code were written into the Program, long before your Code was included. A large part of me feels as if everyone within that family tree, should all have to agree to it's use by Websites and Law Enforcement, beforehand. And if you do decide to Upload your DNA, only those Lines of Code, that are specific to you, should be available to these 3rd Parties and so forth.
Of course, these are just a few thoughts, which may need to be put into further consideration, etc. However, you cannot just use another individual's likeness without their consent. It's also your DNA which remains a primary factor, in determining an individual's likeness.
The biggest problem is if that information is leaked to the private sector. Use people's DNA to find criminals, absolutely, but if companies are able to look at your genetic information whenever they want, that's where you start running into problems. Problems like being turned down for jobs and insurance not because of a pre-existing condition or bad habit, but because of something you might have in the future.
Derek, thank you for this video. And all the work you do. You’re truly an inspiration, thank you for all that you are doing. God bless you.
I liked the phrase "we're kinda sleepwalking into that scenario." I thought that was a great description.
Kinda just breezed past the whole 'Former Police Officer Was The Killer' aspect to this story, didn't we. Someone who, if the tech existed, would have had access to such a system.
@DStecks Probably still had contacts and affiliations with people in police, which is probably why he quit after DNA technology started getting used.
@AwkwardYet I think all police personal should be in the data base ,you are talking about very close proximity of power and ability to commit crime and evade law enforcement ... Just my thoughts
@RiversCuomo_ Oh trust me. I know, sadly.
@Mohamed Habib They must put the police officer DNA into the database now so that the police DNA isn't confused as a suspect, right?
What about the convicted innocent people set free by DNA? One of the comments was illuminating "we don't own our DNA, everyone related to us does"
The guy that brought up health insurance, I just thought that was genius. I mean I haven't thought about the matter too much but I would completely understand that insurance companies having access to information about your potential heath issues would be cause for concern.
Just before the start of the second minute of this there’s a clip of a house in Walnut Creek where he struck in 1979. There was a playhouse that my father built in the backyard (we lived there until ‘74). It was discovered DeAngelo climbed atop its roof to peer down into the victim’s bedroom. Her father tore it down within days after and suffered a fatal heart attack a couple years later. The victim expressed he was so distraught after the incident she’s convinced it lead to his demise. Besides all the effects the victims suffer through this is just an example of the collateral that is visited upon the families.
I think having your DNA in a database could be used constructively to help society, but like most things, it can be used appropriately. How often have you heard of officers abusing police databases for personal and nefarious reasons. Is it being suggested that DNA information can't be misused?
Rule #1 : Obtain consent from the individual submitting a DNA sample, as to whether or not their private information can be looked at.
Law enforcement has repeatedly proven that they CAN'T be trusted to follow laws or act ethically !!
Pedro Scoponi - 2021-09-30
The issue with me isn't so much whether my privacy outweighs the need to catch violent criminals, it's whether I can trust institutions to not abuse of the privacy we've given up. And you really, really can't - and as the video demonstrates, even if you distrust them to the point of not being willing to share information yourself, your privacy might still be intruded upon anyway. This is a really complex, kinda haunting thing to think about.
TwinStar9 - 2022-10-11
@Mike Mikel Minority rule is alive and well in this country.
lastplace199 - 2022-10-13
@Elena Simon You don't go to a hotel, think "I'll only be here a little while" and then burn the hotel to the ground. Humans still have to make a life while we're here. If not for ourselves, for the ones that come after.
Pub x Stompa - 2022-10-17
Those who would sacrifice liberty for security deserves neither.
QSAnimazione - 2022-10-17
@Pub x Stompa That's nonsense
TwinStar9 - 2022-10-17
@Pub x Stompa You silly.